i'm in the final year of MCA and i'm not so bad in programming.some friends of mine told me to do oracle developer and some other told me to go for DBA.i'm confused???
please help me and tell me which one is better and whose scope is more either dba or a developer??
also which one'll helpful in getting a good job easily?

- DBAs tend to get paid more, but they earn it with after-hours support. After-hours support is almost unavoidable for a DBA, but affects a small percentage of programming jobs, and rarely to the same extent.

- There is a large range of developer jobs requiring a range of ability levels. The range is smaller for DBAs because there are not as many jobs, so the required skill level is higher. There are highly skilled people in both jobs, but many people that make it as programmers would not make it as DBAs, because nobody wants a general run-of-the-mill entry-level DBA.

- The are some "Development DBA" jobs, where the DBA writes some application SQL and PL/SQL, usually for a non-oracle front end. These jobs are rare, usually the DBA is all about managing and monitoring the database with very little application work, or none at all. Some people find this unrewarding - it is a thankless task.

- Even though DBA is a job requiring a high skill level, this high level is required for only some of the duties. A lot of DBAs get stuck with some dull, repetitive, unchallenging tasks whilst they are waiting for the next emergency.

It might sound like I'm down on DBAs. I'm not, I have the utmost respect for them, and lean heavily on them to help solve some tricky problems. But I don't want to be one for some of the reasons above. A DBA would have a different perspective, and would give a heap of reasons not to be a programmer.

I guess the biggest difference is the customer. As a programmer, you get involved with people outside of IT. As a DBA, most of your customers are other IT people. Maybe it comes down to who you prefer dealing with? Some people find it tedious and annoying to deal with luddites and technophobes, they would probably make fine DBAs. Others are the exact opposite.

Taj, are you saying that a developer is below a DBA in the Oracle hierarchy? Shame on you! I've been a developer for quite some time now and I'm happy with it. A DBA has a different job. Is it more difficult than a developer's job? It is different: if a DBA screws up, more people are likely to be affected. His responsibility is more obvious: keep the database healthy and assure uptime. But I don't think a developer is a "DBA in training".

I guess I should have included the smiley. The way you stated "first x then y" gave me the (apparently wrong) impression that you saw developer as a step towards the final goal: DBA. No sweat, no harm done: I just misread your post. I think you are right though: if the OP is good at programming, why not have a shot at it.